Comments on: Rebuilding The Family Tree

Lesley Stahl Reports On The Hopes And Limitations Of Genetic Genealogy

[selmey63]

I watched your piece on Reconstructing The Family Tree last night. I was shocked that the scientists that were interviewed didn''t know the latest on DNA findings relating to where our ancestors came from. The fact of the matter, and the most important concerning our roots, is that every person alive today in the world comes from Africa. About 60,000 years ago small groups of people began leaving Africa and settled in other parts of the world. No one existed in any other parts of the world prior to this. Please go on line and enter a scientists by the name of Spencer Wells or enter the Journey of Man. It will be explained with proof much better than I can explain it. We evolved in Africa and skin tones and features changed over time given the impression that we came from various parts of the world. We are only one race.

[motherhen11]

Oh, that''s just a bunch of ***.

[republic1776]

Race does not matter, in the future when we''re all the same moca color. We will look at other attributes like the big nose people small eared people, and of course social classes too.

[ggm1940]

About Leslie Stahl''s Genes and Ancestory. Please check out the different evidence as given by a wonderful Black professor of Sociology from New York University; as to why DNA CANNOT determine Ancestory. He gave a wonderful scientific lecture on UCTV: What Can DNA Really Tell Us About Race. It made the most sense of the matter. Please show his side of this. You will be amazed. Thanks, Janie Martin

[mommalolo]

My ancestors worked hard, endangering their family and lives to help your relatives (via the underground railway) to enable many to escape the atrocities they were forced to lived with. We fed, clothed and cared for you-shared what we had-nursed your people and in many cases were persecuted, willingly I might add. Your people were slaves and my people thought that was an atrocity. Many, many of us really tried to right that wrong. Your reward today is a system that continues to look after you, educate you, protect you. My reward is being treated like garbage.

[ethnobjj]

Part 2 That didn''t make it in before:

You can literally get on a train in Ghana and get to the Sierre Leone faster than you can get from Georgia to Texas in a car! Today''s nations in Africa are the results of the partitioning of the continent of Africa in the 1800s by European colonial empires. Hundreds of years before that nations, nation-states, tribes, etc. moved all around the continent. Lesley could have had a point if the companies were calling out far away countries like Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Egypt and South Africa. The countries Vy came from are neighboring countries of the former Gold Coast (also called Slave Coast) prior to colonialization.....Tsk tsk tsk 60 Minutes. Leave the history lessons to PBS and TVOne...

[ethnobjj]

Horrible report 60 minutes. You started o.k. but your insensitive and ignorant efforts to discredit the African ancestry database were poorly executed. You obviously don''t know that the Mande PEOPLE (not tribe) of West Africa are a family of ethnic groups. Just a simple GOOGLE on "Mande of West Africa" brings up Wikipedia''s simple explanation. Truly the difference between Sierre Leone, Ivory Coast and Senegal in the case of locating cultural groups is the difference between the states of the Deep South (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,& Louisiana). If it took me 30 secs. to varify that the Mande people come from " Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Ctte d''Ivoire," your researchers could have done a better job and not tried to smash the hopes of someone just trying to find out where they came from. Not to mention the role African migration played while the colonials were pillaging Africa beginning in the seventeenth century up to the mid-twentieth century. D- 60 Minutes. Do a follow up story if you really care about people''s family trees. ps-Lesley, they do have the same eyes! That''s the first thing I said.

[davedav2]

Pardon me, DIDNTINHALE, or shall I say cousin, but your ignorance in praising the atrocities that occurred on American soil is so absurd and ignorant that you couldn''t possibly have watched the special of which these comments refer. No you couldn''t have. Furthermore, what does the Duke La Cross incident have to do with an inappropriate depiction of American miscegeny? Stay on subject. DIDNTINHALE if you an ounce of the American virtues that calls to the descency of our AMERICAN FAMILY you would be dedicated towards upholding true depictions of American History. So I implore you to do your research on American Institution of Slavery, and Jim Crow, to gain an understanding of the wounds caused and the manner of which they healed. If you can honestly say that they''ve completely healed at all.

[davedav2]

In closing, I would like to reiterate that I did not come from immigrants, nor did the woman that was featured in the reported story. Nor did African Americans come from the union of some seventeenth





Part 3

century interracial marriage. We come from people that were captured, sold, and raped, amongst other dehumanizing practices, which was meant to preserve an institution that enriched the American economy for several centuries to come. It is a sad and disturbing fact, but it is true

[davedav2]

part 2
To have even contributed to the impression that Africans willfully came to this country on slave ships, as did European immigrants, distorts true American history and misconstrues the cultural identities of African Americans. Maybe by exploring the issue presented by the African American geneticist, regarding the psyche of African Americans, you would%u2019ve done justice by researching the effects of the cultural trauma endured by African Americans due to the denial of atrocities, such as rape, committed by Americans during the practice of slavery. Ironically, you rather found it more interesting to explore the inaccurateness of the DNA test, alluding to the possibility that maybe the African American woman did not come from African slaves. Maybe her family just sprouted out of the fields of Virginia, the Carolina%u2019s, Georgia, Alabama,


Florida, Mississippi, etc Unfortunately, the recognition of the denial of American atrocities was never addressed within the story, so many African Americans will continue to tune in to news reports such as Finding One%u2019s Roots and witness their history being discussed with negligence.

[davedav2]

part 1

The fashion of which the subject of genetic genealogy was presented raised several issues that I would like to share with you. First, let me say that your introduction was very insensitive towards all African Americans that were watching. For it to be mentioned that this country is %u201Ca nation of immigrants%u201D and not include %u201Cslaves,%u201D distorts the reality that many Americans are the descendants of slaves.
America is not simply %u201Ca nation of immigrants,%u201D it is a nation of immigrants and slaves. The failure to indicate, within the introduction of the story, that Americans also come from slaves is appalling. By having had disregarded this crucial fact you have added to the deception that functions to hide the impact of the institution of American slavery on American people. African American%u2019s have been displaced in American history, mislead by American media and miseducated by American schools, because certain institutions have been careless when attempting to uncover America%u2019s past and discussing the subject of miscegenation. This point was even raised by the African American geneticist that you interviewed in the report: imagine what American history has done to the psyche of African Americans. Sadly, 60 minutes did not explore this issue.
t 1

[ohisee-2009]

Are you serious? Once again, I sat and watched a sneaky report about a brilliant discovery. Listen, there is no need for the good law professor Hank Greely to ''worry'' about the people who don''t realize ''just how many ancestors they actually have.'' PLEASE! What is that about?
Even in its complexity, the various DNA connections that were discovered for Vy Higginsen are not mysterious nor wrong and certainly not to be worried about. Those findings are proof through science of the nefarious business of slavery.
Africans from various tribes and African countries were BRED to produce the best product for slavery, therefore the DNA punch. Not only were they bred with one another, many female slaves were impregnated by white slave owners to produce a breed of slaves that brought in a higher price because of their lighter skin. Love had nothing to do with it, so the idea of blacks being in the bloodline of a white family or whites being in the bloodline of a black family should not be shocking. Because that practice was a business, it gives clear reason as to why family stories do not include such infoBefore you decide to tell the story again, tell it right. What a sad presentation.

[jrecord2]

Having had great success with both Y-DNA testing and mtDNA testing in locating missing family members and in discovering my true surname I was disapponited not to see a more positive light on this wonderful new means of genealogical verification. It is certainly more than the rumors and legends we relied upon before DNA came along. Cudos to all the hard work of the research!

[s06161934]

I was disappointed in Lesley Stahl''s superficial and formulaic treatment of genetic genealogy. She picked an interesting, but slightly sensational, example (the Wests) and then brought in the predictable academic "expert" to cast aspersions on companies whose work he does not know firsthand. From my own extensive dealing with FamilyTreeDNA, the company that West used, I know that its president never overstates the significance of his results. Had Stahl really chosen to inform viewers about the genealogical useful information that may be gleaned from DNA testing, Bennett Greenspan (president of FamilyTreeDNA)could have provided numerous examples, one of which was published in AVOTAYNU, the International Review of Jewish Genealoy in its Summer 2007 issue.

[angelzgrace]

To the lady about Native American Heritage. Go to Trace Genetics. They have the largest Native American database and then don''t forget the autosomal test from DNAPrint Genomics, Inc. It''s called AncestryByDNA. You can find your tribe with mito (female) and y-chrom (male) tests. So you will need a male on which ever side of the family you believe your Native American originates. Good luck.

[angelzgrace]

Too bad, 60 minutes always has to go for the cheap shot. Leslie, a very poor piece and 60 minutes producers, you should get your facts straight. Autosomal testing, that the stuff between the mito and y-chrome, tells the percentages of Sub Saharan, Native American, Indo European and Asian and that would have shown that those two people, although related by mito and y, were very DISTANT cousins. Shame on 60 minutes. Furthermore, did you ever think to stop and explain how this testing is being used in health and forensics? Like tracking down serial killers???What''s wrong with you guys?

[rennieboy-2009]

Hopefully, Leslie Stahl will consider another program showing the real benefits of DNA comparision. Most of us consider DNA testing a tool to verify what we do know and also what we might find out. Anyone with a mixed background has a clue as to where they came from, however there are surprises as well. We could learn from these examples of meeting others and forget the racial, ethnic, religious bias. We are genetic mixtures and we are Americans. We are blessed because of our forebears, wherever they originated, came to form a new country for everyone. We haven''t been perfect, but we can learn to accept different backgrounds.

[mdillow31]

Did you ever consider early migration patterns when the DNA companies found several results for Ms. Higginson in Africa ? If you didn''t the staff at 60 Minutes should have, and it appears you didn''t. That is exactly why there were several results because people moved from one location to another. In other words the DNA companies were giving all matches found with Ms. Higginson''s DNA. I would have thought the investigative team at 60 Minutes would have thought of that. What does that mean ? It means the DNA companues gave Ms. Higginson every bit of information they could give her. As more people test their DNA and do the full genome sequences there will be a chance in the future with new technology by the scientific community that we will be able to pinpoint results better than today. DNA has only been on the horizon for about the last ten years. This could be compared with John Glenn making his first trip to outer space. It takes hard work and developing better technology to make advancements in DNA. This means that the DNA companies were not giving Ms. Higginson false information. 60 Minutes messed up on this story. Repition is the essence of learning and I think the 60 Minutes staff needs to study more on the DNA subject matter before a half-baked program is presented to the viewing public.

Marianne Dillow

[thelucas]

Interesting program...it would have been nice if they mentioned more about The National Geographic Genographic Project https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html and the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation http://www.smgf.org/

My question, does any of this offer valuable information to those of us who have been adopted?

[marclean1]

I would like to know how to find to get dna results, if you have indian hertiage. Could someone please help.
margaret